Dear Gardeners,
Have you been falling into fall? Our autumn season temperatures have flip-flopped so much, I’m tempted to write another summer newsletter! O dear—never mind my weather grumbles. It is the Lord’s faithfulness and steady surprises we must discuss!
Election tensions are looming, yet our backyard hardly knows it, yielding seeds in bolted mustard-family blooms and sorghum stalks, offering a gentle reminder of God’s overarching promise of steadiness and Presence. “Lettuce” do what we do best—sow seeds of prayer in endurance and keep listening for His call (Genesis 3:9).
May I happily report on the Family Workshop at Fort Worth Botanic Garden this fall for homeschool families and anyone who wanted to join in the hands-on fun. Working with education and greenhouse leaders, I presented the plants of the three Biblical feasts—Passover, Pentecost, and Feast of Tabernacles—to ages 3 to over 50, and then we explored the Backyard Garden section together to find them growing right before our eyes. Everyone went home with seeds and seedlings to plant for themselves, along with tasting some of the Biblical flavors – a special “taste and see” day (Psalm 34:8) to celebrate the Lord.
My next talk will be back in the Washington, D.C. area just after Thanksgiving. My Book, My Father is the Gardener, continues to do well at the Museum of the Bible, hallelujah! From the book signing there last spring, I have been invited to speak at Saint Agnes Catholic Church in Arlington, VA. If you are in the Virginia area and would like to come, just email me for details at shelleycramm@gardenindelight.com.
Relish the snapshots and Scriptures to follow as you persevere in faithfulness to pray for our nation. May you and your family have a cozy, warm (warm fires and warm pie, that is; hopefully, not warm weather!) Thanksgiving, the crowning celebration of fall. Thank you for continuing to follow Garden in Delight!
Sincerely,
Shelley S. Cramm
author & gardener
God wants the combination of his steady, constant calling and warm, personal counsel in Scripture to come to characterize us, keeping us alert for whatever he will do next. Romans 15:4 The Message
From the Homeland
Field Trip to Brooklyn Botanic Garden, NY
A visit to my daughter in New York gave me an extra day to brave the subway and see Brooklyn Botanic Garden. This legendary green space, established nearly 130 years ago, delights with flower-filled beds, forested vistas, fascinating conservatories, and an herb garden to inspire eating from your backyard. But my secret desire was to see a certain regal tree.
As one would expect in a century-old garden in the northeast, towering oaks and plane trees populate the wooded hillsides, and among them, the crown of Biblical plants: Cedar of Lebanon. I love discovering this majestic tree when visiting older gardens, as there was a great passion to plant this Biblical nobility in earlier centuries.
With the help of my GardenComm colleague Erica Grivas and her adorable investigative urgency, we consulted with horticultural staff to track down these splendors, trudging through ivy ground cover to confirm Cedrus libani. The specimen I’m standing with is not original to the garden’s beginnings, but planted more recently, a mere “sapling” of forty years or so, considering cedar of Lebanon trees can live for a millennium. What a treasure hunt!
From the Nightstand
Ambitious reading for autumn days
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The Garlic Companion by Kristin Graves (I love this Canadian farmer’s cheerful grit and can’t wait to dig into garlic-growing from her point of view)
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Everything Beautiful in Its Time by Jenna Bush Hagar (With a Scripture for a title, I could hardly pass by this gentle memoir discovered at the George Bush Museum)
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God Talks by Ed Rush (The Marines are dear to my heart, and this fighter jet pilot leads readers on a don’t-miss faith journey, especially important for our times)
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Betty Ford by Lisa McCubbin (From my visit to Grand Rapids and President Ford’s Museum, I was drawn to First Lady Ford’s story and remember her groundbreaking recovery legacy)
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Make it Stick by Peter C. Brown, Henry L. Roediger, and Mark A. McDaniel (A change-it-up understanding for the life-long learner, with better strategies to retaining information and new skills)
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Taste and See by Margaret Feinberg (drop everything and become a Margaret Feinberg fan! She writes in all earthiness about agricultural themes of the Bible, can I say a big enough “Amen!?”)
Find more in-depth book discussions in Devotions Blog Book Reviews at Garden in Delight
From the Garden
Sow cumin seeds to “taste and see” Isaiah 28:23-29 & Matthew 23:23
What’s on your windowsill? I have been inspired to grow cumin, Cuminum cyminum, once again. Although I have found this to be a tempermental plant to grow from seed and have failed many times in the past, I am newly inspired by the Greenhouse Production Specialist at Fort Worth Botanic Garden, with whom I collaborated throughout the summer for our fall Family Workshop. She sprouted a pot of seeds along with other Biblical species grown for the class, and look, look! Some of mine have sprouted, too. With our extended warm season this year, I am ready transplant them to our garden to enjoy through fall to spring for summer flowering.
From Apiaceae, the butterfly or parsley family, cumin joins Biblical herb-buddies dill, coriander, and fennel to fill Biblical stories with seedy flavor. Funny thing: I had to return to instructions and remember the right way to grow cumin (Isaiah 28:26)! Since dill, coriander, and fennel will endure our mild, only-occasional-freezing-nights winters, I assumed cumin was a cool-season abider, too. Seed companies say otherwise. Hmm. My barley is planted (v.25), but maybe cumin needs more sheltering. Stay tuned!
Learn more about cumin in the Garden in Delight Plant Guide:
Blurbs & Praises
Featured in Blue Letter Bible newsletter
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enjoy the cover article on “In the Garden of God’s Word,” featuring my partnership with Blue letter Bible ministry and their enthusiasm for my latest book, My Father is the Gardener
Refresh with a Poem
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take in God’s splendid majesty with C is for Cedar of Lebanon, a rhyme and meter excerpt from the A-to-Z Primer of Plants in God’s Word
Featured in Voyage Dallas
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dig into Voyage Dallas, an online magazine spolighting local artists, small businesses, entrepreneurs, and more!
Fall Prayer
O Father, seeds still sprout and leaves still fall and despite uncertainty and what presents as impending calamity in the polls, day-by-day You more than sustain us—You stream unending beauty if we watch for it, tucked in with special visits and heart-full times with loved ones. O Father, You bring such a sweet quality to life, and the garden helps to ground us in this. Thank you for the poetic twist that seasonal changes have a constancy, giving us a gardener’s grasp of Your reassurance (even if it seems like I’ll never wear a sweater again!). Thank You for the way the garden brings us to You and helps us to root our ways in Yours (Isaiah 55:9).
Though I confess that weather drama gives me something to gawk about, I pray for weather patterns to turn from chaotic to blessed. Blessing Your people is Your nature; may I keep focused on glorious You! In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
